


Softness

by ethereal_construct



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Not enough proofreading done, Retrospective, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 16:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12685743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethereal_construct/pseuds/ethereal_construct
Summary: A retrospective from Wrex's point of view on how he thinks of Shepard, and the difference between opinions and how you interpret them.





	Softness

Soft.

That was Wrex's first impression of her, another human playing at being a soldier. Not able to take proper hits or dish them out. Talking rather than fighting, trying to stop him from killing Fist.

But she had good connections, and Saren's actions didn't sit right with him --- not after that freighter raid. Plus, she had the worst possible luck with fights. She could use a bullet sponge, and hey, the pay was good and the fights better.

His opinion is only reinforced when she lets the queen go. A genocidal bug lies to her face and she accepts it? It takes him a while to cool down from that.

Letting the asari poke around in her head? Hah, even the quarian could see that she didn't want that, and she was just keeping the little asari happy. At her own expense, given the "don't-bother-me" look on her face at the coffee pot the next morning. Not the face of someone who just had a good rest.

He had to admit grudging respect for the effort she went through to keep the colonists alive on Feros, though. Still soft, but not weak --- she took a bullet to the lower arm from one of them and didn't even complain.

Trusting the green asari who, by her own admission, worked with Saren? To muddle about in her head? That couldn't do anything but backfire.

It's on Virmire that that grudging respect finally transforms into actual respect. He knew how angry he'd been, and to see that tiny human walk up to within headbutt range and stare him down? That took a quad. She'd seen how he hit and walked right up nonetheless.

Seeing her reaction to Sovereign is . . . well, that's the point he realizes he never wants to be on the receiving end of that _fury_. He's actually not sure he could take her in a fight when she's like that.

She's still a squishy human who's too soft when it comes to losing people under her command, though. Who takes time away from chasing Saren to hunt down, of all things, his grandfather's armour. For him.

He hadn't expected that. He didn't approve, no matter how much he appreciated it. Who knows what Saren could have gotten up to in the meantime?

She cared about her people too much. When she stumbles out of the rubble, the glowing-red husk of Saren dead behind her, he sees how she desperately checks that everyone is not badly hurt before allowing anyone to take care of her.

He wonders if she could handle losing another of them without breaking apart \--- let alone her krantt in its entirety, like he did. It comes as a surprise to him, then, that he considers her his battlemaster. He's surprised that this soft, squishy human commands his respect.

It isn't long before he wonders if her krantt can handle losing her.

Her softness has infected all of them, it seems --- they've all had something break inside of them. They're all a little lost on what to do next.

Then the quarian goes home, and on an impulse he gives her a shotgun. He blames the infection.

It's not until he sees the drive still present in Garrus that he really understands. She was soft, but softness is not the same thing as weakness. He knew that already --- but she turned softness into a strength, something that helped her. She inspired them. (They followed her.) She took care of them. (They looked after her.)

They went above and beyond for her.

He knew she still cared about them, until she died at least. Even though the job was done. It hadn't been an act, it wasn't forced. She'd been such a bleeding heart and genuinely cared about her people. As people, not just as soldiers and warriors.

He blames that damned infection again when he realizes that, even in death, he wants to make her proud of him.

So he does exactly what he thinks she'd approve of --- goes and headbutts people back home until they start making sense. It isn't until he responds to a distress call from the Turians overseeing the DMZ as they're being attacked by a rogue clan that he realizes how much she's changed him. Damn softness, making him care about Turians.

The logical part of him knows that he did it to gain favour of those who hold Tuchanka's fate in their hands. The political part of him uses it as leverage for building supplies and factory parts.

The soft part of him knows he did it because it was the right thing to do.

He's perfecting how to sharpen his softness into a knife to kill his enemies with when she reappears.

When she asks if he can come with, he considers striking with it. Then he thinks better of it. Then he does it anyway, because that's what she taught him.

He says no, but that he'll help however he can. Because the more she does, the more she'll be indebted to him --- to Urdnot --- to the Krogan. Because the Hero of the Citadel is a powerful ally to have, and a Tomkah for a couple of hours and adopting a new krogan into Urdnot is nothing compared to a word in the right ear in the Alliance. Or the Republics. Or the Broker, if what she hints about Liara is true.

But he also helps because it's the right thing to do.

When she parts with a handshake -- a strange human custom, but one he's perfected -- they lock eyes, and he's confused by the glint in hers, by the look on her face. It's not something he's familiar enough with human faces to recognize.

It's afterwards that he realizes what it is. It's unfamiliar to him. He hasn't seen it in human faces much before.

Respect. (For him.) Pride. (In him.) Certainty. (That he'll do the right thing.)

That damned infection flowers in him.

The final connection to the idiocy of his past shatters when he lets it.

By the time she comes back, with stories of destroying a relay and about to turn herself in, he's achieved something. Something that hasn't happened in a very, very, long time: he's made progress properly uniting the Krogan, not just his clan. He's a little disappointed she isn't surprised. She's pleased, though, and that means something to him. He isn't sure what, exactly.

He thinks her plan to turn herself in is stupid, at first. That she's being too yielding to the government she used to serve, and could accomplish more out here in the Terminus on her own. With her ship and her crew...

Then he realizes what he's thinking, and wishes her luck. He can't wait to see where her knife strikes.

He grows restless, and frustrated with the idiots both in his clan and elsewhere. He sharpens his blades, literal and metaphorical, and brings in the salarian to start working on a future.

Both of them have spent time with her. They both understand the stakes.

They both have that infection.

When communications with the Batarians disappear, he's wary. When Earth suddenly disappears from the comm network, he knows what's coming. He brings out his monomolecular-sharp knife of softness and strikes, forcing a final genophage cure.

She does it, the flakes from the cure and exploded atmospheric Shroud falling around him like snow, the same beauty of a blizzard but with flecks of hope instead of cold. He knows what's coming, accepts it, and commits his people to the war.

He's surprised when he realizes she cured the genophage because it was the right thing to do, not because of his knife. That she cares enough about the formerly-genocidal idiots he commands to ensure they have a future.

He looks at his impossibly-sharp knife and makes sure he can still remove it from his hand.

He loses track of her for a while, meeting up when the war is getting desperate. She's got a plan, and for the first time ever, he's worried about her.

She's not soft any more. All he can see is tension, stress, and hardness.

Then, before the final assault, he sees it again when she speaks to the entire allied force. One last run, she tells them. One last battle.

He sees her almost break from the strain, bending and yielding at the last moment, inspiring and hoping.

She's back.

And then she's gone.

And when Urdnot Shepard, his first daughter, asks him how he would describe her namesake, he pauses.

He's tempted to give the usual answers: that she was glorious in a fight, that she inspired them to do great deeds, that she had a honeyed tongue.

But he looks at his knife of softness that cuts so sharply it brought the krogan together.

And tells her about doing the right thing, even when others don't want you to.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an experiment, and I'm not that happy with it overall, but I don't feel like doing (much) more editing, so it gets posted. I originally was planning on doing a few of these for different characters, but I don't have the time right now . . . hopefully one day. Also, seems appropriate to post this on Remembrance Day.
> 
> If the writing was a bit confusing, then that was at least partially intentional. I set the goal for myself to not use anything except pronouns and simple descriptors (salarian, asari, etc.) as an exercise. Partially because it was a challenge, more because Wrex actually does speak like that quite a bit. It's also about Wrex's (complicated at times) feelings towards Shepard, so it was supposed to reflect that.
> 
> But if it makes no sense at all, then I've gone too far! Comments on how well that worked out would be welcome. :-)


End file.
